Intersectional Vulnerabilities Research Articles

In defense of social work’s ADEI mandate: Perspectives on how we can move forward and combat antisemitism together

ABSTRACT Social work has long embraced the value of combating oppression and the 2022 Education Policy and Accreditation Standards enshrine “anti-racism, diversity, equity, and inclusion” (ADEI) as core curricular areas. An upsurge in academic fights over legitimate concerns about social justice have created deep rifts within the profession and academia. As social work educators and academics with an ongoing and deep commitment to social work principles of social justice, we examine whether and how ADEI content can help us move forward. We describe how Jewish identity has been conceptualized in ADEI spaces and implemented within implicit and explicit curricula historically and in the wake of October 7 and rising antisemitism. We share personal reflections as social work academics with different positionalities about our own experiences, concerns, and hopes for the profession and our core principles. We include reflections grounded in our differences regarding our proximity to the Hamas-Israel conflict; institutional situatedness as it relates to power, credibility, and intersectional vulnerability; Jewish American and Jewish Israeli identities; and personal perspectives and viewpoints. While some have been calling for the removal of ADEI-related content in academia and elsewhere, our answer to the problems we face is not less but more of such content. This means deeper authentic engagement with fundamental principles of ADEI, more knowledge of what it means and how to do it, and suspicion of absolutism, certitude, and exclusion when it comes at the expense of humility and connection.

The Intersectional Vulnerabilities of Migrant Women in Disaster Contexts: A Scoping Review of Mental Health Impacts During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Disasters disproportionately impact vulnerable populations, particularly migrant women, who face unique challenges exacerbated by their intersectional identities. The COVID-19 pandemic serves as a critical case study to explore these vulnerabilities, highlighting the heightened mental health risks and socio-economic adversities they encounter.This scoping review synthesized qualitative literature published between 2020 and 2023, focusing on the experiences of migrant women during the COVID-19 pandemic. A systematic search was conducted across PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science, yielding fourteen studies that examined themes such as mental health, gender-based violence, and access to healthcare services.The analysis revealed that legal status and economic instability emerged as primary vulnerability factors, significantly impacting the mental health of migrant women. Key themes included the exacerbation of gender-based violence, barriers to accessing healthcare, and the detrimental effects of social isolation and lockdown measures. The intersectionality framework elucidated how these women’s unique challenges are compounded by societal inequalities.The findings underscore the necessity for tailored disaster response strategies that address the specific needs of migrant women. Inclusive policies must consider the social determinants of health to enhance resilience and improve mental health outcomes in disaster scenarios. The study identifies critical gaps in existing literature, advocating for further research into the intersectional vulnerabilities faced by migrant women during various disaster contexts.

The role of the European Union’s securitisation policies in exacerbating the intersectional vulnerability of refugees and asylum seekers

ABSTRACT This article compares the European Union's (EU) reception and resettlement of European and non-European refugees and asylum seekers from an intersectional viewpoint. It does so using data collected during fieldwork in Greece focusing on Sexual and Gender-Based Violence (SGBV). The goal is to examine, through an empirical and theoretical study, the gendered, racialised, national and religious nature of the EU's approach to its external policies, border security approaches and its constitutive nature based on contingent, relational and non-additive vulnerabilities and inequalities that have been inherited from the EU's colonial past. The study asks how the influx of refugees fleeing the Russian invasion of Ukraine exemplifies the gendered, racialised, national and religious dimension of the EU's approach to border security. It examines how the EU's approach showcases the paternalistic approach to refugees' vulnerability through essentialisation, which leads to their vulnerabilisation. It looks at the intersectional impact of the gendered, racialised, national and religious constitutive nature of non-European refugees, as well as the gendered, racialised, national and religious notion of ‘others'. Based on the comparison, the article contends that, theoretically, State or EU security and human security policies should not be mutually exclusive. However, as the empirical data illustrate, there are multiple competing ‘insecurities’ which are prioritised over others.

On the margins of refuge: Queer Syrian refugees and the politics of belonging and mobility in post-2019 Lebanon

This paper explores the dual marginalization of LGBTIQ+ Syrian refugees in Lebanon, highlighting the interplay between national policies on deportation and the crackdown on the LGBTIQ+ community post-2019. Lebanon, home to 1.5 million Syrian refugees—the highest per capita globally—is a case study in how social, political, economic, and legal frameworks do not merely overlook refugee challenges but actively intensify their isolation. Particularly for LGBTIQ+ Syrian refugees, everyday experiences of violence, discrimination, stigmatization, and isolation are exacerbated by these frameworks. In 2022, this situation worsened when Lebanon's Minister of Interior, yielding to pressure from religious groups, directed security forces to disrupt gatherings within the LGBTIQ+ community. Employing qualitative research methods, this study delves into the compounded effects of these policies on the intersectional vulnerabilities of queer Syrian refugees. It examines their perceptions of vulnerability and security, underlining the profound impacts of overlapping decisions on deportation and the suppression of LGBTIQ+ rights.

A Mixed Methods Study of Perceptions of Mental Illness and Self-Disclosure of Mental Illness Among Medical Learners

Introduction: Mental illness stigma remains rooted within medical education and healthcare. We sought to measure perceptions toward mental illness and explore perceptions of self-disclosure of mental illness in medical learners. Method: In a mixed-methods, sequential design, authors recruited medical learners from across Canada. Quantitative data included the Opening Minds Scale for Healthcare providers (OMS-HC), the Self Stigma of Mental Illness Scale (SSMIS), and a wellbeing measure. Qualitative data included semi-structured interviews, which were collected and analyzed using a phenomenological approach. Results: N = 125 medical learners (n = 67 medical students, n = 58 resident physicians) responded to our survey, and N = 13 participants who identified as having a mental illness participated in interviews (n = 10 medical students, n = 3 resident physicians). OMS-HC scores showed resident physicians had more negative attitudes towards mental illness and disclosure (47.7 vs. 44.3, P = 0.02). Self-disclosure was modulated by the degree of intersectional vulnerability of the learner’s identity. When looking at self-disclosure, people who identified as men had more negative attitudes than people who identified as women (17.8 vs 16.1, P = 0.01) on the OMS-HC. Racially minoritized learners scored higher on self-stigma on the SSMIS (Geometric mean: 11.0 vs 8.8, P = 0.03). Interview data suggested that disclosure was fraught with tensions but perceived as having a positive outcome. Discussion: Mental illness stigma and the individual process of disclosure are complex issues in medical education. Disclosure appeared to become more challenging over time due to the internalization of negative attitudes about mental illness.

Migrants facing intersectional vulnerability to HIV and AIDS in Switzerland: an exploratory study

An emerging body of evidence suggests that a significant number of HIV-positive migrants to Europe acquire HIV after arriving in their host country. There is an urgent need to rethink HIV and AIDS prevention for migrant populations and to acknowledge the specific vulnerability to HIV and AIDS that migrants face. This article uses empirical data collected in a qualitative sociological study conducted in Switzerland. We provide evidence for the heuristic value of articulating an intersectional approach within a multilevel (biographical, interactional and contextual) framework to capture the complexity of the vulnerability to HIV and AIDS. We show that migrants’ specific vulnerability to HIV and AIDS results from social vulnerabilities related to many social and cultural dimensions, including migration status, socioeconomic conditions, gender and sexual identity, sexual norms, the relational context in which sex occurs, power relations and sociocultural structures of the receiving country. The three case studies presented illustrate how HIV-related processes of intersectional vulnerability are embedded in sexism, cisgenderism, and racism, and how they are closely linked to social inequalities in health. Effective HIV and AIDS prevention for migrants must take greater account of these power relations and sociocultural structures.

The precarious lives of others: studying community, treatment, and precarity in Homebound

Abstract This paper explores themes of precarity, community, and treatment in the novel Homebound (2021) by Puja Changoiwala. The text foregrounds the experiences of migrant workers in India during the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020 as they walked home during a nationwide lockdown. The paper locates itself within discourses on health, differential treatment, and intersectional vulnerabilities which are compounded by factors including gender and poverty. It particularly highlights the concepts of precariousness and precarity as opening up multiple avenues for exploration of the migrants’ experience within the neoliberal political economy. The paper argues that it is the pre-existing precarities that are systemic, epistemic, and gendered, which aggravate the vulnerability of communities in a medical crisis. Furthermore, it looks at how social and medical treatment of the workers facilitates violence at the hands of those who perceive them as the ill-other – the police forces, the public, the healthcare workers, and the media. It also questions the logic that underlines spaces such as pandemic camps, which become sites of control more than care, and where medical treatment is inhered in socio-political biases and constructs. The paper argues that apprehending these experiences of socioeconomic and gendered precarities through literature can aid in developing a complex and sustained engagement with unequal socio-political systems that perpetuate violence and vulnerability.

Barriers and facilitators for the sexual and reproductive health and rights of displaced Venezuelan adolescent girls in Brazil

BackgroundThe crisis in Venezuela has forced almost eight million people to flee to mainly neighbouring countries, including Brazil. Half of the displaced Venezuelans are women and girls, with adolescent girls facing distinctive challenges to their sexual and reproductive health during displacement and settlement. The aim of this study is to understand the barriers and facilitators for the sexual and reproductive health of adolescent Venezuelan girls residing in Brazil. MethodsThe study used qualitative methods, including semi-structured interviews with 19 Venezuelan migrant adolescent girls conducted in Boa Vista and Manaus. We analysed transcripts using thematic analysis, and mapped findings to a theoretical framework based on the Bronfenbrenner Socio-ecological Model, which we adapted to explore how intersectional vulnerabilities at the individual level interact with contextual factors creating barriers and facilitators for health and rights of migrant adolescent girls. ResultsVenezuelan adolescent migrants in Brazil face practical and structural barriers in realising their sexual and reproductive health and rights in four areas: menstruation; family planning, contraception and sexually transmitted infection; prenatal, childbirth and postnatal care; and preventing gender-based violence. The reported barriers were lack of knowledge around sexual and reproductive health rights, exposure to violence and lack of access to age-appropriate healthcare services. Mitigating factors included education (both in the family setting and at school); prevention activities undertaken by health services; care provision from non-governmental organisations and international agencies; and best practices in local health services. ConclusionsHost states must take action to enhance the right to sexual and reproductive health for adolescent migrants to allow them to make autonomous, independent and informed choices. A socioecological perspective on sexual and reproductive health and rights can help formulate intersectional policies that interconnect different levels of adolescent migrants’ experience.

Dignity and Human Rights Violations at the Workplace: Intersectional Vulnerability of Women Domestic Workers in India

Dignity and Human Rights Violations at the Workplace: Intersectional Vulnerability of Women Domestic Workers in India

A Critical Feminist Perspective on Climate Change Adaptation Plans: Mapping Municipal Recognition, Dialog, and Budgeting

Abstract Feminists’ scholarship and critique of gender climate injustice have exposed just how scarce the practical efforts to correct it are. The challenge of generating incentives designed to encourage urban planning that accounts for expected intersectional vulnerabilities during climate disasters reflects a gap in knowledge: how does professionals’ awareness of intensified vulnerabilities inform climate adaptation plans (CAPs)? We propose an intersectional critical feminist perspective evaluating recognition, dialog, and budgeting that decodes the social process by which professionals’ knowledge of intersectional vulnerabilities is lost before informing CAPs. Based on an empirical investigation of the increasing gender awareness among administrators who accumulate knowledge about women’s vulnerabilities, our analysis contributes an explanation of the marginalization of gender mainstreaming toolkits in urban CAPs. We show that even in municipalities characterized by increasing levels of recognition, relevant knowledge rarely informs the dialog, and planning appropriate responses for intersectional vulnerabilities is left unbudgeted.

The role of trauma-informed formulation in increasing compassionate and person-centred care within youth forensic services

Team formulation can provide opportunities for integrating interprofessional perspectives, leading to a rich consensus of how to support someone. Such an approach can be particularly important when working in complex environments, where it is essential that a range of professional perspectives inform a trans-professional approach to care. Youth Forensic Services are one such setting, supporting young people who face intersectional vulnerabilities and have often experienced multi-type traumas. A trauma-informed approach to team formulation facilitates a compassionate perspective to inform decision-making and care planning, encapsulating an understanding of how a young person’s past experiences of trauma may be influencing how they interact with their environment and in relationships in the here-and-now. Additionally, some therapeutic modalities may feature more dominantly within trauma-informed formulation, which may reinforce a greater theoretical basis to the formulation process, offering further opportunities for tailored, evidence-based, person-centred care.

Migration, Vulnerability, and Experiences of Insecurity: Conceptualising Insecure Migration Status

This research examines the insecurities that are embedded within immigration status or lack thereof. I argue that, to improve our understanding of the relationship between immigration-related insecurity and violence, we need to reconceptualise how we think about, measure, and analyse immigration-based characteristics. This research proposes building an analytical category that can conceptualise insecure migration status to include forms of immigration status that internalise insecurity in addition to being without status, or with an irregular status. These insecurities often incorporate gendered dynamics. Grouping these different categories around a commonly shared experience of insecurity allows us to prioritise experiences of insecurity that are persistent even as people move, cross borders, and change status. I propose that this will permit a more comprehensive picture of migration-related harms that exist across states, status types, and borders while allowing researchers and data gatherers to be attentive to intersectional vulnerabilities that enhance insecurity for particular categories, subgroups, and populations.

Cartographies in the Wilderness: A Decolonial Theological Reflection on Intersectionality

“Cartographies in the Wilderness” is a decolonial theological reflection on intersectionality. With a specific attention to how decolonial theory rethinks the spatial dimensions of the modern/colonial world, I offer an alternative framework for thinking about the “whereness” of intersectionality and the bodies and souls it hopes to redeem from interlocking oppressions. The work is specifically aimed at undoing an overdependency on reifying and defending intersectional vulnerabilities as the sole method of delinking from the logics that naturalize exclusivist forms of human difference. Through a decolonial reading of Delores Williams’s “wilderness experience,” I argue that theology can engage critical theory (read here as intersectionality) fruitfully without falling victim to the so called “divisiveness” that is often associated with the historical narratives that emerge from the critiques of race, class, gender, sex, and sexuality. From a decolonial theological perspective, I conclude that an adequate decolonization of the geopolitics that situate knowledge and knowledge production is key for the future of cooperation between theological reflection, intersectionality, and critical theory at large.

Intersectional disparities in climate vulnerability and cancer risk.

Despite significant progress in the early detection, treatment, and survivorship of cancer in recent decades, cancer disparities continue to plague segments of the US population. Many of these cancer disparities, especially those among historically marginalized racial and ethnic groups and those with lower socioeconomic resources, are caused and perpetuated by social and structural barriers to health. These social and structural barriers, which operate beyond the framework of cancer control, also systematically increase vulnerability to and decrease adaptive capacity for the deleterious effects of anthropogenic climate change. The established and emerging overlap between climate vulnerability and cancer risk presents complex challenges to cancer control, specifically among populations who suffer compounding hazards and intersectional vulnerabilities. By embracing these intersections, we may be able to conceptualize promising new research frameworks and programmatic opportunities that decrease vulnerability to a wide range of climate and health threats to advance health equity.

Mental health of vulnerable groups experiencing a drought or bushfire: A systematic review.

Natural hazards are increasing because of climate change, and they disproportionately affect vulnerable populations. Prior reviews of the mental health consequences of natural hazard events have not focused on the particular experiences of vulnerable groups. Based on the expected increase in fires and droughts in the coming years, the aim of this systematic review is to synthesize the global evidence about the mental health of vulnerable populations after experiencing natural hazards. We searched databases such as Ovid MEDLINE, EMBASE, CINAHL and Ovid PsycInfo using a systematic strategy, which yielded 3,401 publications. We identified 18 eligible studies conducted in five different countries with 15,959 participants. The most common vulnerabilities were living in a rural area, occupying a low socioeconomic position, being a member of an ethnic minority and having a medical condition. Common experiences reported by vulnerable individuals affected by drought included worry, hopelessness, isolation and suicidal thoughts and behaviors. Those affected by fire reported experiencing posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and anger. These mental health problems exacerbated existing health and socioeconomic challenges. The evidence base about mental health in vulnerable communities affected by natural hazards can be improved by including standardized measures and comparison groups, examining the role of intersectional vulnerabilities, and disaggregating data routinely to allow for analyses of the particular experiences of vulnerable communities. Such efforts will help ensure that programs are informed by an understanding of the unique needs of these communities.

A Gender-Based and Quasi-Experimental Study of the Catastrophic and Impoverishing Health-Care Expenditures in Mexican Households with Elderly Members, 2000-2020

ABSTRACT Latin America has experienced a rise in noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) which is having repercussions on the structuring of healthcare delivery and social protection for vulnerable populations. We examined catastrophic (CHE) and excessive (EHE, impoverishing and/or catastrophic) health care expenditures in Mexican households with and without elderly members (≥65 years), by gender of head of the households, during 2000–2020. We analyzed pooled cross-sectional data for 380,509 households from eleven rounds of the National Household Income and Expenditure Survey. Male- and female-headed households (MHHs and FHHs) were matched using propensity scores to control for gender bias in systematic differences regarding care-seeking (demand for healthcare) preferences. Adjusted probabilities of positive health expenditures, CHE and EHE were estimated using probit and two-stage probit models, respectively. Quintiles of EHE by state among FHHs with elderly members were also mapped. CHE and EHE were greater among FHHs than among MHHs (4.7% vs 3.9% and 5.5% vs 4.6%), and greater in FHHs with elderly members (5.8% vs 4.9% and 6.9% vs 5.8%). EHE in FHHs with elderly members varied geographically from 3.9% to 9.1%, being greater in less developed eastern, north-central and southeastern states. Compared with MHHs, FHHs face greater risks of CHE and EHE. This vulnerability is exacerbated in FHHs with elderly members, because of gender intersectional vulnerability. The present context, marked by a growing burden of NCDs and inequities amplified by COVID-19, makes key interlinkages across multiple Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) apparent, and calls for urgent measures that strengthen social protection in health.

Intersectional Vulnerabilities and the Banality of Harm

Abstract In this article we examine how intersectional vulnerabilities are experienced and made sense of by women of color activists in Europe. We name intersectional vulnerabilities as a broad, sometimes contradictory, set of emotions, all tied to activists’ complex experiences of insecurity and community. Intersectional vulnerabilities are those risks and rewards, derived from women of color activists’ positioning in relation to race, class, gender, sexuality, disability, and legal status, which shape the possibilities of women of color’s activist labor. These vulnerabilities are Janus-faced, in that they are experienced as social harms that oftentimes lead to community. Our article grapples with the bittersweetness of vulnerability and how the banality of harms meted out to women of color nevertheless contains the seeds of resistance, solidarity, and self-love.

Intersectional Identities and Land Dispossession

Land grabbing has long been present in Southeast Asia, but with the spike in commodity prices in 2008, land grabbing intensified. The procedure is highly problematic as it often occurs at the expense of peasant farmers, land stewardship, food sovereignty, and human rights. So far, the literature has paid insufficient attention to the vulnerability of indigenous women and their intersectional vulnerability of gender and ethnicity when facing land dispossession. Such neglect poses far-reaching analytical limitations and questionable political implications. It is essential to bridge the gap between land-grabbing studies and the gendered implications of land dispossession on indigenous women to generate more nuanced analyses of the issue. Through a qualitative in-depth comparative analysis of the general implications of land dispossession on indigenous women in Southeast Asia and two case studies of the Cordillera Administrative Region in the Philippines and Kalimantan in Indonesia, the paper tries to answer how does the gendered politics of land dispossession affect indigenous women? It finds that indigenous women have higher physical and economic vulnerabilities due to land dispossession than non-indigenous women. These vulnerabilities are further heightened due to the lack of representation in decision-making. However, how these vulnerabilities play out highly depends on national and local factors.

Reconsidering the Conceptualization of Resilience: The Experiences of Refugee and Immigrant Youth in Montreal.

Over the last two decades, immigrant and refugee integration service agencies in Canada have been incorporating a focus on resiliency in their work and hold "fostering resilience" as a primary goal of services. These agencies focus on helping their clients enhance resilience in response to their integration challenges. Refugee and immigrant youth (RIY) face intersectional vulnerabilities during their resettlement process. These challenges make the concept of resilience vital to their success. However, resettlement service providers associate RIY's resilience with their assimilation into the Western culture such as integrating into the dominant culture. This definition is insensitive to cultural and social factors that contextualize RIY's definition of resilience. Drawing from in-depth interviews of Refugees and Immigrant youths in Montreal, and using Resilience as a conceptual framework, the research study investigated the barriers to the integration of RIY and their conceptualization of resilience. The study found social isolation, cultural differences between the host and home communities, racism, hostility, aggression, and language to be barriers to RIY's integration. The youth conceptualized resilience as a form of adaptability to any situation; as the ability to integrate into a new society while remaining deeply rooted in one's culture and past experiences; and overcoming marginalization. The paper contributes to a nuanced critical understanding in the field of refugee and migration studies and further throws light on a growing triangular interrelationship between social and economic integration of refugees, cultural factors of host communities, and resilience.

Solidarity and strife after the Atlanta spa shootings: A mixed methods study characterizing Twitter discussions by qualitative analysis and machine learning.

On March 16, 2021, a white man shot and killed eight victims, six of whom were Asian women at Atlanta-area spa and massage parlors. The aims of the study were to: (1) qualitatively summarize themes of tweets related to race, ethnicity, and racism immediately following the Atlanta spa shootings, and (2) examine temporal trends in expressions hate speech and solidarity before and after the Atlanta spa shootings using a new methodology for hate speech analysis. A random 1% sample of publicly available tweets was collected from January to April 2021. The analytic sample included 708,933 tweets using race-related keywords. This sample was analyzed for hate speech using a newly developed method for combining faceted item response theory with deep learning to measure a continuum of hate speech, from solidarity race-related speech to use of violent, racist language. A qualitative content analysis was conducted on random samples of 1,000 tweets referencing Asians before the Atlanta spa shootings from January to March 15, 2021 and 2,000 tweets referencing Asians after the shooting from March 17 to 28 to capture the immediate reactions and discussions following the shootings. Qualitative themes that emerged included solidarity (4% before the shootings vs. 17% after), condemnation of the shootings (9% after), racism (10% before vs. 18% after), role of racist language during the pandemic (2 vs. 6%), intersectional vulnerabilities (4 vs. 6%), relationship between Asian and Black struggles against racism (5 vs. 7%), and discussions not related (74 vs. 37%). The quantitative hate speech model showed a decrease in the proportion of tweets referencing Asians that expressed racism (from 1.4% 7 days prior to the event from to 1.0% in the 3 days after). The percent of tweets referencing Asians that expressed solidarity speech increased by 20% (from 22.7 to 27.2% during the same time period) (p < 0.001) and returned to its earlier rate within about 2 weeks. Our analysis highlights some complexities of discrimination and the importance of nuanced evaluation of online speech. Findings suggest the importance of tracking hate and solidarity speech. By understanding the conversations emerging from social media, we may learn about possible ways to produce solidarity promoting messages and dampen hate messages.